• Home
  • News
    • All News
    • Movies
    • Comics
    • PlayStation 4
    • PlayStation 3
    • Xbox One
    • Xbox 360
    • PC
    • Indie
  • Reviews
    • All Reviews
    • Movies
    • PlayStation 4
    • PlayStation 3
    • Xbox One
    • Xbox 360
    • PC
    • Indie
  • Previews
  • Exclusives
    • All Exclusives
    • Columns
    • Opinions
    • Satire
    • Comics
    • Off-Topic
    • Guides
    • YouTube
  • Tech
By Paul on 18 Aug, 2015: published about 5 months ago
Loading Comments

Review: Metro Warp Brings Aimless Walking Straight To Your Desktop

Metro Warp shows us the dystopian future your parents always feared, every oblivious pedestrian walking while only staring at the cellphone screens.

Quick Rating
  • Worth The Time?
    Only if you really need to see pedestrians reach their destination.
  • Things Loved
    The controls allowed for the player to manipulate the walking speeds to allow for solutions to be tested bit by bit and the 3D nature of the puzzles forced players to put a lot of extra thought into how they were going to direct the traffic.
  • Things Hated
    The player is never told about new mechanics that are added in later puzzles and the non-linear nature of the game means the difficulty jumps around based on which puzzle you chose to complete next.
  • Recommendation
    If you ever wanted to guide predictable commuters and are adept at guessing how to play games, you may find a little bit of enjoyment here.
  • Name: Metro Warp
  • Genre: Pedestrian Management Simulator
  • Players: 1
  • Multiplayer: N/A
  • Platforms: PC
  • Developer: Another Yeti
  • Publisher: Another Yeti
  • Price: $9.99 (R130)
  • Reviewed On: PC

Admit it, you’ve all been walking while looking at your phone and accidentally walked into something or, and this if far more embarrassing, someone. Now imagine that everybody just walked while looking at their phones. Throw in some slight restrictions and some weird floating worlds and you have the premise for Metro Warp.

  • Popular Articles
  • Recent Articles
    • You’ll Be Able To Play (Expensive) PS2 Games On Your PS4 Now | 2 months ago
    • Jessica Jones Disempowers Its Male Characters And The Effect Is Refreshing | 2 months ago
    • Hell Is 30 000 Deathclaws Tearing Through Boston And It’s Glorious | 2 months ago
    • Sony Santa Monica Is Teasing Something Truly Strange | 2 months ago
    • Goodbye | 2 weeks ago
    • EGMR Awards 2015: The Inevitable Wrap-Up | 1 month ago
    • EGMR Fun Awards 2015: Most MLG Moments | 1 month ago
    • EGMR Fun Awards 2015: Manliest Game | 1 month ago

    Metro Warp is a 3D puzzle game that requires you to guide oblivious pedestrians who can only turn left through 50 floating worlds, using obstacles to guide them to the exit. This is a very simple premise that does manage to grab you from the start, but it struggles to keep its grips on you.

    Such a simple first puzzle, the rest of the game should be a breeze!

    Such a simple first puzzle, the rest of the game should be a breeze!

    The main idea of the game is to get a certain number of wayfarers through an exit on the map without having them collide with one another or fall into a pit of exposed wires. This sounds simple enough right? To make things a little more interesting, developers Another Yeti decided that they could only turn when faced with obstacles. This creates a sort of Lemmings-esque puzzle game where your objective is to guide the single minded walkers with the various obstacles the game provides you with.

    It is important to remember the above details as, while they are quite easily picked up by simple observation, the game doesn’t like to tell you what is available to the player. To give you a basic tutorial, each puzzle has an entrance, an exit and an oddly shaped map that is contorted into strange shapes which occasionally have dangerous pits that are filled with live wires, not something you would want to fall into. As you know, the pedestrians you are meant to be guiding only walk in a straight line until they are unable to any further, to which they make the life changing decision to turn left and continue walking. Since you know this is the case, you the player have to guide these poor direction-less souls using one of the most important tools utilised in any metropolitan area, road signs. The signs available for you to place start off as simple obstacles, but you are later provided with signs that can change the turning direction of the walkers. There are even different coloured tickets that are required to enter the exit of the corresponding colour, which adds an additional depth to the game’s puzzles. This gives the player quite a few options for tackling the 50 puzzles the game throws at you.

    The game’s puzzles are interesting, but sadly do not feel as rewarding as they could. The fact that they are 3D means that you are required to flip the map around to make sure you can see it from every perspective. So while the puzzles took a lot of fiddling with to complete, I didn’t feel any sense of achievement upon accomplishment. After figuring out what was available to you for a puzzle, it became a case of just putting down signs and testing out possible movement bit by bit until you find something that works. What is nice is that there is the option to stop, start, pause and adjust the movements of the pedestrians, which makes the whole trial and error process a lot more bearable. So in the end, while there were some challenging puzzles here and there, the simple methodical approach one has to make unfortunately kills the delight found in finally getting to the solution of a puzzle.

    I always thought this is what forgetting about gravity would look like.

    I always thought this is what forgetting about gravity would look like.

    What is both nice and frustrating is that the game takes a non-linear approach to the players progression through the puzzles. Upon the completion of a puzzle, the player is presented with a number of options that they will be able to continue to. This is all well and good but there is no way to identify which of the puzzles you can move on to are the easier or more difficult ones. While this may seem like a rather pedantic criticism for something that isn’t really an issue considering you can just leave your progress on a puzzle to come back to at a later stage after doing an easier stage, it can attribute to someone losing interest in the game after having completed some more difficult puzzles but being forced to complete simpler ones to progress.

    So while the gameplay is solid, it is tough to not feel that there could have been more done to separate it from other, more compelling puzzle games. It has its moments where it gets tricky but these are few between puzzles that have a very monotonous feel about them.

    At first glance, the simple design doesn’t immediately jump out at you but after spending some time with the game I have to admit that there is a very simple elegance to the game’s visual presentation. There is, due to the presentation, no way that one could be confused about what is going on in the game. The important aspects of the puzzles are designed to clearly show their purpose, which is possibly why they opted to not include any sort of explanation to the player.

    Two Entrances One Exit.

    Two Entrances One Exit.

    If it had been any other way however, I feel like the game would have been dead in the water. It’s quite obvious what and where the entrances and exits are, clearly communicated the way they are designed, and hazards and other requirements to finish are also quite clear and obvious. It was nice that, while it was not always clear as to what the player was able to do, the players could easily grasp the idea of what had to be done.

    For those who may be worried that Metro Warp does not feature the adequate representation of the people who would inhabit a metropolitan area, the pedestrians have randomised sex and gender. It is just unfortunate that they are all depicted as business people, there may be others with different lifestyles who could also be walking aimlessly.

    So if the game is relatively easy on the eyes, how does it affect the ears? The audio of the game is rather basic, with the only sound effects being that of the exit counter counting down as people enter it and a generic sounding error noise when something goes wrong. These sounds feel very plain and the addition of some walking sound effects may would have been welcomed, just to add that feeling that there is indeed movement happening when you click start.

    You need the correct ticket for each exit? When did life become this difficult?

    You need the correct ticket for each exit? When did life become this difficult?

    What the game does do right is the soundtrack that is used as the background music of the game. The soundtrack of ambient electronic music facilitates a very calm feel for the game, creating an environment that is conducive to intense puzzle solving. The problem is that, while I did enjoy the music, I did find that it quickly became rather boring. The songs quickly found themselves being indiscernible from one another and even after enjoying the soundtrack I felt that the same song was getting repeated far too often. Its sound started off strong, but it inevitably played itself into a boring state of affairs.

    On the whole, the game is totally playable and it is definitely possible to find some enjoyment in it. Someone who is not well-versed in puzzle games will definitely get something out of this title. It is fun and intriguing enough to keep you playing for a while, but it eventually doesn’t do enough to make you feel the need to play through until the end. Those who have been exposed to many a puzzle game may feel that, while the game does enough to warrant interest, it just doesn’t do enough to keep you interested in it. So while this review may seem very indecisive on the game, it is important for you to know that while the game’s presentation does well and that it stands to be a delightful challenge at times, you also have to make sure you have a firm understanding of what you want out of this title before making the decision to pick it up.

    What's worse than walking into someone? Probably cracking your phone's screen because of it.

    What’s worse than walking into someone? Probably cracking your phone’s screen because of it.

    Look at all these pretty icons you can click:

    • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
    • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
    • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
    • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
    • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
    • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
    The Verdict
    55
    100
    While it's difficult to recommend, Metro Warp does enough to be an enjoyable experience at times but does unfortunately fall flat due to some minor shortcomings. You could probably get your money's worth from the title, but the strongest suggestion is that you think more about whether you would enjoy this genre and how much you enjoy solving medium-difficulty puzzles, before committing to this game.

    Click Here, Read More. It's Easy.

    • 3 Dec, 2015
      Review: Bulb Boy Is A Charming Exploration Of The Macabre
    • 23 Nov, 2015
      Review: Mushroom 11 Is A Typical Platformer With A Wonderfully Transformative …
    • 26 Oct, 2015
      Review: APT Is Portal-Inspired Puzzle Platforming Done Deliciously
    • 26 Oct, 2015
      Review: Sublevel Zero Will Drag You Down

    Name: Paul Roux
    Location: Cape Town
    Position: Author

    Paul has published 146 posts. Read all of Paul's posts.
    • Email Me
    • My RSS Feed
    • Follow Me On Twitter
    ZergNet
    FANS
    FOLLOWERS
    1262
    SUBS
    636
    Daily News. Sign Up Now.
    Offensive #23: Paragon Interrupt

    Hot Right Now

    • You’ll Be Able To Play (Expensive) PS2 Games On Your PS4 Now
      You’ll Be Able To Play (Expensive) PS2 Games On Your PS4 Now

    • Jessica Jones Disempowers Its Male Characters And The Effect Is Refreshing
      Jessica Jones Disempowers Its Male Characters And The Effect...

    • Hell Is 30 000 Deathclaws Tearing Through Boston And It’s Glorious
      Hell Is 30 000 Deathclaws Tearing Through Boston And It̵...

    • Sony Santa Monica Is Teasing Something Truly Strange
      Sony Santa Monica Is Teasing Something Truly Strange

    • Corsair Katar Review: A Splendid Dagger To The Heart
      Corsair Katar Review: A Splendid Dagger To The Heart

    • Life, The Universe And Gaming: A Survivor’s Guide To Fallout 4 With A Partner
      Life, The Universe And Gaming: A Survivor’s Guide To F...

    • Review: Fallout 4 Is Fantastic But Far From Flawless
      Review: Fallout 4 Is Fantastic But Far From Flawless

    Reviews

    • Review: Bulb Boy Is A Charming Exploration Of The Macabre Review: Bulb Boy Is A Charming Explorati...
      Marko | 49 Views | 85/100
    • Review: Star Wars Battlefront Is A Brief Ode To The Classics Review: Star Wars Battlefront Is A Brief...
      Bracken | 90 Views | 75/100
    • Review: Guitar Hero Live Evolves The Rhythm Game Genre And Will Halt Productivity Review: Guitar Hero Live Evolves The Rhy...
      Marko | 42 Views | 80/100
    • Review: Fallout 4 Is Fantastic But Far From Flawless Review: Fallout 4 Is Fantastic But Far F...
      Caveshen | 230 Views | 70/100
    • Review: Viscera Cleanup Detail – Unsatisfying Menial Labour Review: Viscera Cleanup Detail – U...
      A-G | 92 Views | 60/100

    Previews

    • Preview: It’s Attack On Wallet This Steam Holiday Sale Preview: It’s Attack On Wallet...
      Paul | Regret | 342 Views
    • Need For Speed Wants To Make You Do Sweet Drifts, Bro Need For Speed Wants To Make You Do ...
      Marko | Vin Diesel | 158 Views
    • The Siege Of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six The Siege Of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
      Paul | Counter-Strike | 100 Views
    • Everything We Can Tell You To Expect In Halo 5: Guardians Everything We Can Tell You To Expect...
      Caveshen | Guilty Spark | 242 Views
    • Hands-On: Star Wars: Battlefront Has Potential, But Needs Serious Work Hands-On: Star Wars: Battlefront Has...
      Azhar | Spaaaaaaaace! | 598 Views

    Columns

    • Life, The Universe And Gaming: 2015: Muh Oppressions, And Other Things
      Life, The Universe And Gaming: 2015: Muh Oppressions, And Other Things

    • Abyssal Pixels: Role-Playing – The Absurd Versus The Faithful
      Abyssal Pixels: Role-Playing – The Absurd Versus The Faithful

    • Life, The Universe And Gaming: A Survivor’s Guide To Fallout 4 With A Partner
      Life, The Universe And Gaming: A Survivor’s Guide To Fallout 4 With A Partner

    Indie

    • Gone Home Officially Coming To Peasants
      Gone Home Officially Coming To Peasants

    • Review: Bulb Boy Is A Charming Exploration Of The Macabre
      Review: Bulb Boy Is A Charming Explorati...

    • RWBY: Grimm Eclipse Emerges From Shadows On To Steam Early Access
      RWBY: Grimm Eclipse Emerges From Shadows...

    • Latest Mighty No. 9 Trailer Shows Off Some Shiny New Gameplay
      Latest Mighty No. 9 Trailer Shows Off So...

    • Review: Viscera Cleanup Detail – Unsatisfying Menial Labour
      Review: Viscera Cleanup Detail – U...

      Interact

    • Submit a Tip
    • Suggest a Feature
    • The Team
    • Review System
    • Archives
    • Competitions

      support

    • Contact
    • Site or Article Error
    • Advertising
    • Competition T&C
      Creative Commons License

      stay connected

    • RSS Feed
    • Twitter
    • Twitter - Full Feed
    • Facebook
    • YouTube
    • Email Newsletter

      newsletter

      Enter your email address to receive our newsletter for news, articles and updates.
    Copyright © 2016 — #egmr. All Rights Reserved.
    A member of the Blotch Network with Clutchd Automotive.
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.